


Broken Survivor

by StaticLantern



Category: Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2
Genre: Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 04:10:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2334782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StaticLantern/pseuds/StaticLantern
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith Marshall is one of the first people in Savannah, Georgia to be evacuated when the outbreak hits, but when the helicopter goes down before it barely even gets out of the city, he's left to fend for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Evacuation Failure

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally supposed to be a one-shot, but it got a lot longer than I had intended, so I'm breaking it into chapters. I doubt it'll be much longer than 10 chapters at most.
> 
> \----------
> 
> Follow me on tumblr! http://birdwithakeyboard.tumblr.com/

A zombie apocalypse was discussed relatively often between these three Savannah boys; Dave, Keith, and Ellis. The three were inseparable, except of course when Dave was up in Augusta visiting his girlfriend, which was often. Otherwise, the three hang out at Ellis’ house (because Dave’s house didn’t have a lot of property and Keith was living in a shack because his ma kicked him out half a year earlier).

Out of all of them, Dave seemed to entertain the idea of zombies the most. In a morbid sort of way, it seemed fitting that he was one of the first to succumb to the illness. It was popping up all over the place, reports of people all across America growing feverish and erratic, eyes glazed over, barely sleeping, eventually growing aggressive before inevitably dying. Then, they didn’t die at all, even when police unloaded entire clips into their chests.

Ellis had been on a trip farther south when the evacuations began. Keith wasn’t sure when he was supposed to be back, but he had hope that since Ellis had gone by himself with his heavy duty truck, he’d get away from the waves of rabid people crawling through the streets. Keith on the other hand was one of the first to be evacuated. He was rushed from he and Ellis’ auto-repair shop at two in the afternoon, pushed and shoved across town with hoards of other people, and crammed onto a helicopter, not even given enough time to really question what was happening. Dave never made it that far.

Keith didn’t make it too far either. Not in the same sense that Dave did, but he barely got out of the city. No one really knew what went wrong, but the helicopter came down, hard against the earth. Keith didn’t hang around long, but he didn’t see anyone else in the wreckage moving, and with the screeches of infected and the very distinct sound of a Spitter somewhere nearby, he couldn’t stop and inspect everyone. He got out of there as fast as he could.

He thought it was weird that he kept finding supplies, but he figured they were just left from other survivors that didn’t get as far as he did. He was grateful nonetheless. It wasn’t too long after the helicopter went down that he found a shotgun, a baseball bat, and a med pack. A little ways after that, he found ammo, a second gun, and a bag full of food. He traveled alone for a long time.

Two months after the infection broke out, Keith was well off. He’d picked up exceedingly quickly how not to attract the regular infected, though Witches, Hunters, and Jockies still seemed to like him quite a bit. Seemed he ran into at least one a day, but he never seemed to find himself without a weapon. Finding food was easy too. There had been a lot of looting when the hoards broke out, but you could find most of that food just sitting around in houses.

The third month was coming up poorly for Keith. A Hunter caught him sleeping one night and nearly tore him to shreds. It was a stroke of luck he managed to find his gun in the dark and blow a hole through the back of the creature’s throat, but not before receiving a long, deep set of gashes along his left shoulder, covering the sleeve of tattoos with red darker than his hair. He worried his libret piercing nervously, looking over the wound. He knew by now that for some reason he was immune to catching the virus himself, but an injury like this could leave him rotting in a ditch in a matter of days.

Bandaging the gash quickly, he moved on to the next safehouse before settling down to clean it properly. It was beginning to scab over, but didn’t yet look infected. He used a small amount of water he found already inside the small room to clear the rest of the blood away, then rewrapped his shoulder with the last of the bandages from his medkit. Afterwards, he pumped himself full of adrenaline, painkillers, and antibiotics, then fell asleep on the makeshift cot in the corner.

The next morning came and Keith found himself feeling overwhelmingly ill. His skin felt hot to the touch and he could barely open his eyes. He’d not felt this horrible since he contracted the flu only a few days after being tear-gassed. He’d intended on moving on to the next safehouse today, but he was in no condition to travel today. He knew he was in trouble when he didn’t even have an appetite, instead just letting himself fall asleep again.

It was impossible to tell how long he’d been there for, since every time he woke, it was only long enough to gauge that he still felt like absolute shit before passing back out again. The only change was when he opened his eyes one night to see a figure sitting across from him. His heart lurched painfully, his eyes squinting in an attempt to figure out what had gotten into his safehouse and how.

But the figure didn’t move. His grip on the handgun tucked under his pillow tightened, his finger curling around the trigger.

“You awake?” The figure asked suddenly. It was a female voice, steady and even, not giving away any emotion in particular.

“Who’re you?” He asked through a hoarse, garbled accent.

“My name’s Krista. I got here last night.” She replied. She had the same accent as Keith, but more subtle.

“Keith.” He replied with a cough.

“Nice to meet you Keith. What’s your shoulder all wrapped up for?” She leaned in a bit, inspecting Keith’s arm from a distance.

Keith cleared his throat, fighting to stay awake, though he had to admit, he didn’t feel as bad as he has. “Hunter ripped up my arm, caught me sleepin’ one night.”

Krista nodded. “You immune?”

“I figure I am. Got bit a few other times, never changed then, reckon I won’t be changin’ now.” Keith finally dragged himself into a sitting position.

Krista was silent, but seemed satisfied by the answer. After a moment, she stepped forward and rested on the edge of his cot, reaching over and unraveling the bandages. The wound beneath was sticky and discoloured and had a slight putrid smell emanating off it. Keith took one look at it and choked, inhaling sharply and clenching his jaw. There was no doubt in his mind that this wound would do him in.

Krista didn’t seem so faithless though. She worked quickly, scrubbing the wound clean again (which succeeded in extracting pained groans and hisses from Keith). The swelling went down after a bit, though it was still red, puffy, and oozing various coloured fluids. Krista took out a medpack of her own and applied some unrecognizable ointment to the wound. She finished quickly by rewrapping it in clean, white bandages.

Keith improved fairly quickly after that, eventually regaining his appetite and getting restless enough that he began pacing around the safehouse, driving Krista up the wall. Once he was well enough that he could eat the rest of their food and complain that the wound scarred over his favourite tattoo, they headed out.

\----------

Krista and Keith got along really well. Or at least, they did now. The outbreak changed both of them. Krista used to be a valley belle, real popular in highschool (she was just about to graduate), Prom and Homecoming Queen two years in a row, came real close to being valedictorian. Keith was covered in tattoos, not too bright, had a lot of real bad ideas, never got along with his family, he was the guy that none of the girls wanted to associate with in highschool. Keith and Krista would never have gotten along before all of this.

Since the outbreak though, they both hardened. Krista was pretty quiet most of the time, mostly busying herself with counting and recounting supplies, cleaning her one gun and sharpening her little hunting knife. Keith talked, but only to try to cheer Krista up. He told her about how he got all of his tattoos and how when he first started stretching his ears they got really infected. He told her about the Bull Shifters and the auto shop he owned with Ellis and Dave. He talked a lot of Ellis.

“One time, me an’ my buddy Ellis went with Dave out to meet his girlfriend, and she had jus’ bought some weed from some guy an’ we all sat down to smoke it together, y’know, but about halfway through, we was realizin’ somethin’ weird was happenin’.” Keith was talking a bit slowly, winded by the gradual upward hike through the woods. “Long story short, Ellis an’ I spent about an hour an’ a half wanderin’ naked through this field chasin’ these blobs a colour that broke away from the car. We sobered up ‘round 5 in the mornin’, cold as shit with all sorts a lil bugs what attached themselves to our skin.”

“You and Ellis sound like ya’ll get into a lot of shit.” Krista replied, having been utterly silent up until this point.

“Yeeah. Our parents always thought I was the bad influence on Ellis, but really, Dave was gettin’ us into a lot a the trouble. Course, we all had our fair share a bad ideas. Like this one time Ellis an’ I stole a bunch a his dad’s pills, tryna get high, but when it wasn’t really workin’ none, I decided to prove to Ellis that I could juggle, an he gave me a bunch a stuff outta his workshed, so I started jugglin’ all these like, sheers an’ trowels an’ a lil weedwhacker thing. Then I realized all them pills we snuck from Ellis’ dad was actually a bunch a viagra, an’ I accidentally dropped the weedwhacker and it came real close to… well, y’know.”

“What happened then?” Krista asked, sounding a little breathy as well.

“I cried. I don’t cry too often, but when it comes to sharp objects near my weiner, I cry.” Keith replied, managing to get one of Krista’s rare little smiles. He smiled back, his crooked teeth flashing at her.

Then they both stopped. The sound that reached their ears made their blood run cold, they could barely bring themselves to move, even with the realization of what was happening. It wasn’t till the sound of a Charger hit them that either of them finally did anything.

“RUN! NOW!” Keith ordered, grabbing Krista’s shoulder and shoving her forward.

It wasn’t long till they heard the sounds of a hoard right behind them, crashing through underbrush. Keith stopped momentarily, taking out the Charger before it had a chance to really gain on them, then turned back and kept running. By now, Krista knew that even if Keith stopped running, she wasn’t allowed to. Keith made that very clear after the first hoard they encountered. He may not be much older than her, but he’d be damned if he let this girl die before she was even 18. For the time being, he was in charge.

Luckily enough, at least half the hoard was slow, so the first worry at hand was always to take out the fast infected first, as well as any Hunters, Chargers, or Jockies with them. After that came the slow infected, the ones who’d broken their own limbs in their aimless scramble for food. Spitters, Smokers, and Boomers were usually with them, and Tanks and Witches usually stayed on their own, very rarely involving themselves with hoards. Which was good, because Keith had only escaped the three tanks he’d encountered so far by stroke of luck.

Brought down by a Hunter, Keith’s cheek hit a rock hard, black out his vision for half a second before it slowly sparkled back. He flipped onto his back, struggling with the beast. He could feel the tongue of a Smoker wrap around his foot and he knew the infected were getting dangerously close. Keith’s fingers curled around a rock and he brought it hard against the Hunter’s head, disorienting it long enough to slice the Smoker’s tongue from his foot, then bring the blade into the temple of the Hunter’s skull. The knife slid back into it’s sheath, he picked his gun back up, fired a single bullet into the center of the Smoker’s forehead, then turned and kept running.

And Krista was gone. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck where the hell could she have gone? His eyes searched around him frantically, but there was only one direction she could have gone. Could she have gotten this far ahead of him already? She was fast but… His eyes rose to the trees in case a Smoker reeled her up or a Hunter snatched her and hid among the leaves. He saw nothing though. He worried his tongue piercing nervously as he ran, his heart racing as he continued to frantically search for his friend.

She was nowhere in sight and Keith was beginning to panic. He’d entrusted himself with one job, and he’d failed even at that. He guessed his Ma was right, he’d never amount to anything worthwhile and he’d just keep fucking up his friends’ lives. There was no time for thinking like that right now though. He narrowly dodged a Jockey aiming for his shoulders, fired a bullet at it, and kept running.

He seemed to have been running for nearly an hour before he’d finally lost the hoard, either killing them or them simply losing interest and breaking off to find easier prey. Unfortunately now though, Keith was painfully lost and couldn’t for the life of him (quite literally), find the path to the safehouse again. The sun had sunk nearly beyond the horizon, he had no sense of direction, and if he was to survive the night, he’d _have_ to find someplace, anyplace, to hunker down for the night.

It wasn’t nearly as safe as his original destination, but an hour after the sun completely disappeared, Keith managed to find an old cottage of sorts. It used to belong to some elderly couple. He only knew because upon arrival, he had to kill them himself, the two having been feeding on what little remained of their child and their spouse (he wasn’t sure whether the boy or the girl was theirs, but he preferred not to think about it).

He dragged all four of the bodies a good distance away from the cottage, then locked all of the doors and windows, drew the blinds, and locked himself upstairs. Sleep came about as easily as it ever did, which was hardly at all. He almost missed being sick, because at least then he could get more than four hours of sleep. But then again, how was he expected to sleep when he had no way of knowing whether Krista was alive or not.

Sure it was possible she’d simply stayed on the path and made her way to the safehouse, but it was also entirely possible something had jumped her without Keith seeing, and he’d simply bolted right past her, leaving her for dead. The thought made him shudder, so he pushed it out of his mind, rolling over in the bed that smelled strongly of Grandma, and tried to force himself to sleep. He’d be more comfortable if he took off his boots and jumpsuit, but it was too dangerous to sleep comfortably.

\----------

Almost four days passed before Keith _finally_ found the safehouse. No one was there, but he scoured the walls carefully, checking every single bit of graffiti in search of- yes, here it was. Thank God, she’s ok, for now anyways.  
  
 _Keith: Waited 3 days at the meeting spot after we got separated. I can’t wait anymore. Meet me at Mercy Hospital. -Krista_  
  
He let out a sigh of relief. Three days, that means she left yesterday, so if he hurries, he might be able to catch up with her yet, assuming she even made it to Mercy Hospital. It was a two day trip from here with no safehouses in between. He couldn’t afford to wait, he had to catch up with her _now_.

He stayed at the safehouse just long enough to rest, eat, clean and reload his guns, and stock up on any supplies he could find (which honestly wasn’t a lot. He figured Krista probably grabbed a lot of what was there, if there was even anything to begin with). He left quickly afterwards.

Surprisingly, the journey went incredibly smoothly. He ran into one Witch and a very small group of infected, but otherwise, nothing. It was a little eery, but he preferred that to be overwhelmed with hoard after hoard. By mid-evening on the second day, he could see the hospital in sight. An hour later, he was walking through the front doors.

The place was so eery without anyone inhabiting it. Everything was covered in grime, just like everything else. There was blood everywhere, gurneys were overturned, papers and clipboards and pills scattered the floors. Dead bodies littered nearly every room. There was no sign of Krista though. No note, no graffiti, no hand-drawn arrows to indicate where she might be. Keith’s stomach clenched painfully.

Working his way from room to room up each level of the hospital, it wasn’t until the third floor he finally found anything. He’d just stepped out of the elevator when he heard a scuffling down the hall. Gun at the ready, he made his way down quickly, peaking into the room when he reached it. Krista was laying on the floor, a rack that had previously held baskets of medications was sprawled over her.

“Krista?” He asked cautiously, fighting every instinct to run to her.

She didn’t reply. Standing over her, gun pointed on her just in case, she looked incredibly pale. Her blonde hair had turned an ashen colour, brittle and dry, and her nails were long and discoloured. Her eyes were glazed over, slowly moving to train on Keith.

“Krista, what happened?” He asked, hands shaking violently.

He jumped when she let out a scream. He knew that scream. That was a Witch’s scream. His heart sank. She was still weak, struggling under the weight of the rack on top of her, trying to get at him despite her diminished strength. Keith’s finger hovered over the trigger, but eventually released. He knew he’d regret this later, but now, he just couldn’t. He couldn’t shoot Krista. Not this 17-year-old girl that had nursed him back to health and listened to all of his awful stories and let him sleep huddled against her when he dreamt Ellis had died. Not Krista.

So instead, he left. He left quickly and he didn’t look back. He went back to the woods and he kept walking, silent, face hardened. He let Krista down, there was no way around that. He got separated from her and he wasn’t there to protect her. He felt there wasn’t much of a point anymore, just keep on existing. Maybe if he was lucky, he might get reunited with Ellis some day. He didn’t have hope that he’d see anyone else he knew, not that there were many to begin with.

But he had no way of finding Ellis anyways, so he kept walking, going the opposite way as before. By the end of the week, he reached the shore and hunkered down in a safehouse near the lighthouse. Maybe he was being over dramatic, maybe he just wanted someone to know he was there, maybe he had every intention of doing so, but he wrote on the wall.  
  
 _My name is Keith Marshall and I’m going to die here._  
  
For now at least, it was true. He had no intentions of leaving any time soon, so he’d either starve to death, die of dehydration, or get ripped to shreds by the source of the howling and screeching he could hear growing nearer to his hiding spot. Either way, in that moment, his message felt very true.


	2. Worried Thoughts Breed Worried Actions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A familiar face onslaughts a series of new emotions that Keith can't quite seem to puzzle out, though he's certainly not given much time when he runs into an unexpected problem while clearing his head in the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to comment about this chapter except that there's some implied Keith/Hunter stuff near the middle of this one. It doesn't get too graphic, but I tried to be obvious about when it was starting so you can skip over it.
> 
> \----------
> 
> Follow me on tumblr! http://birdwithakeyboard.tumblr.com/

The Lighthouse looked like no one had made it there until now. It was well equipt with guns, ammo, med packs, food, water, and a variety of other supplies. For the first two days, Keith didn’t even bother going through any of the stuff. He slept, soundly for the first time in months, simply because he didn’t care anymore if he woke up to a Smoker standing over him. On the third day, his appetite finally returned and he sat down and went through all of the supplies.

The fourth day came and Keith began packing some of the supplies, still having no intention of leaving anytime soon, but he knew he’d eventually want to. He wasn’t still by nature, the time he’d already spent here was unusual. Keith had been hyperactive since childhood, his desire to stay put would wane soon enough. In all honesty, he was beginning to get restless as it was, pacing around the saferoom, playing with his food before eating it, building makeshift fireworks and pipebombs.

By the fifth day, Keith could barely stand himself. He packed up all of the supplies into a dufflesack he found, throwing on a black jacket, and headed out of the saferoom, completely forgetting about the message he’d left on the wall. Afterwards, he was on the move off and on for another week and a half, keeping busy, blowing off steam whether through attracting small hoards of zombies to kill, or by locking himself down in some safehouse to clean his guns and blades and to create pipebombs, molotovs, and bile bombs.

Four months had passed since the outbreak now. Even with as busy as Keith was keeping himself, his heart still felt hollow. He’d found an empty house in the woods to live in more permanently, within walking distance of a city, but far enough out that he didn’t have to worry too much about hoards. As well as a good location, the house looked like it had belonged to some apocalypse nut, seeing as the basement was heavily armoured and filled to the brim with supplies.

It was comfortable enough. There was a hand-pump well in the backyard that didn’t seem like it’d be running out of water any time soon and he still hadn’t used up the food in the basement. On the rare occasion a hoard _did_ pass by, he simply locked himself downstairs, shooting as they passed by the tiny window he always left open for that exact purpose. He was there for nearly a week and a half when he heard something moving above him.

His eyes slowly creaked open, staring up at the ceiling, ears strained to pick out the sounds. Hunters were notoriously silent before they pounced, so it was more than possible there was one, maybe even two, shuffling about upstairs in search of food. Keith slowly slipped out of bed, clad in a pair of wool socks and his work coveralls, the top hanging loosely around his hips. He grabbed his shirt and pulled it on before grabbing one of his rifles and cautiously making his way upstairs.

Pushing the heavy basement door open, everything was still dark on ground floor, as was expected. His eyes were adjusted though, so he could at least make out a little of his surroundings. Exiting the basement left him in a hallway. To the right, the hall continued to a bedroom and a bathroom, to the left there was another left turn, then the living room. The front door was open and there were two figures moving about the room, slowly, hunched a little.

Taking a few more quiet steps into the room, he pulled his bandana up around his nose and mouth, having found after a hundred run ins with infected, that he somehow always wound up with their blood in his mouth. He’d taken to simply wearing his bandana over his face just in case anymore. Once it was in place now, he cocked the gun, bringing the sight to his eye, and aiming the barrel at the two intruders. They both turned to look at him.

“If you’re lookin’ for supplies, I suggest you move on. I already taken a claim to this spot. Ain’t nothin’ here for you.” Keith said sternly, though he knew from experience that for some reason, his accent tended to make people take him less seriously.

“Nice, he sounds like Overalls.” The man in the white suit said, sounding exasperated.

“We’re not lookin’ for supplies, just a place to sleep for the night.” The girl replied simply, hands held up. There was a machete in one hand, the other was empty.

“Ain’t nowhere for ya, move on.” Keith repeated, still aiming at the two of them.

“Who ya’ll talkin’ to out there?” A deeper voice came from the kitchen to the right, and soon after, a very large man with dark skin came out toting a medpack in one hand, a shotgun in the other.

“How many a you are there?” Keith asked, his muscles tensing even more at the sight of a man twice his size, if not more.

“Four. Where’d that kid run off to?” The white-suit man asked, turning his head to face the newcomer.

“Checkin’ around back I think.”

“There definitely ain’t no room for four a you. Get your friend and get a move on.” Keith cocked his gun.

“Hey now, there isn’t a reason we can’t be civilized about this.” The larger man replied, hands risen a bit. “Like Rochelle said, we’re not lookin’ to take your supplies, just lookin’ for a place to stay for the night.”

“Rochelle?” Keith asked, arching an eyebrow.

The woman rose her hand a bit higher, “That’d be me. This guy here is Nick, and that’s Coach. Our other team mate is-”

Just then, a sound came at the door and the final member of their team came into the room, kicking the door shut behind him. His gaze went from his three friends, to the man with the gun, only to respond by lifting his own.

Keith glanced over his shoulder and froze. Even in the dark, he recognized that trashy blue hat with the truck on the front and the yellow shirt with the crudely drawn image, the words Bull Shifters scrawled in his own poor handwriting.

“We got a problem here?” Ellis asked.

“Looks like you’re a bit outnumbered here… Never caught your name.” Coach said. He looked at ease, gun still slung over his shoulder as though he was quite confident in his abilities to use it before Keith could use his.

Keith still hadn’t taken his eyes off of Ellis though. The only response he gave any of them was to reach up with one hand and yank down the bandana, letting it hang from his neck now. Ellis squinted, staring at the new face, trying to make out the features in the dark.

“Ya gonna tell us your name, or are you just gonna stand there staring at Ellis all night?” Nick snapped, folding his arms over his chest.

“Keith…” Ellis responded for him, his gun lowered.

“Wait, _this_ is Keith?” Nick asked, sounding utterly shocked.

The air shifted. The tension diffused and Ellis practically launched himself at Keith, who jumped a little at the sudden movement. An instinctual response at this point. Ellis threw his arms around Keith, pulling him into a crushing hug. After a second, Keith returned the hug, burying his face in Ellis’ neck. One of the others said something behind them, but Keith couldn’t make it out. His mind was still whirling with the disbelief that Ellis was here.

Ellis was /here/. Keith had his arms wrapped around Ellis, _who was here_. He was here and alive and healthy looking and he had friends and he was alive. And Keith wasn’t. He hadn’t been around mentally for a while. Sure he still kept busy and occasionally let off some stupid home-made fireworks and let himself get black-out drunk every once in a while, but he felt empty.

“Oh my God, Keith I can’t believe-... How did you-...?” Ellis was stuttering out questions he couldn’t even figure out how to finish.

Ellis was just giddy. He was talking excitedly, even though he couldn’t finish anything he started, and he was practically leaping for joy, grabbing onto Keith’s arm and tossling Keith’s hair. Keith just kept staring in disbelief.

“I was expecting something more like Ellis. This guy actually seems bearable.” Nick replied. The group had relaxed, just watching on in amusement.

Then Ellis was dragging Keith over to the others. “Nick, Coach, Rochelle, I want ya’ll to meet my buddy, Keith.”

Keith lifted a hand, barely a wave. “Hey… sorry ‘bout the gun thing, I ain’t met a whole lotta survivors, less that weren’t just wantin’ to rob me blind an’ leave me for dead.”

“Good way to survive, we should trade places. Leave me here, and you take my place in the group.” Nick replied. Keith wasn’t sure if the guy was serious or not.

“Nick!” Ellis snapped, not exactly sounding angry, but definitely expecting a certain answer back from Nick.

“Yeah yeah, you know I’m kidding Ellis, don’t get your overalls in a bunch.”

“Alright, I know this isn’t exactly the best time to ask, but this has been eatin’ at me since Ellis told us. Keith, is it true all these stories about you getting third degree burns and cuts all over your body, and eating three pounds of chicken, nearly drowning in the Tunnel O’ Love?” Coach asked.

Keith let out a single little chuckle. “Ellis’ been tellin’ ya’ll all sorts a tales, an’ they all got a bit a truth I bet. He’s exaggeratin’ though. It was one pound a raw chicken, and all them burns was just on my leg.”

“The same leg though!” Ellis cut in, smacking his hand against Keith’s right leg.

“Yeah, it was. Cuts got a few other places though, a lot a them are covered up by tattoos now though.” Keith finished, nodding slowly, offering up a small smile.

But Ellis wasn’t stupid. He’d known Keith since they were six years old, he knew when Keith was feeling off. Tonight, Keith was _really_ off. Ellis figured when they met up again, they’d both be giddy as school-girls, annoying the shit out of Nick, bouncing around, coming up with half-brained plans to most effectively kill off zombies. But Keith was still and quiet.

“Ay Keith, wha’s up with you? Ya’ll’right?” Ellis asked, looking up at him with big, worried eyes.

“Yeah, Ellis, I’m alright. Ya’ll just woke me up, I’m real tired.” He replied, grinning and rubbing the back of his neck.

“I’m beat too, ya got extra space for us?” Ellis asked.

“Uh, I sleep downstairs, bit of a saferoom down there, but there ain’t a whole lot a room for extra people. There’s a couple a bedrooms elsewhere if ya’ll are ok bein’ a bit out in the open.”

Nick nodded, finally unfolding his arms and taking a couple steps forward, “Well then, Ellis and I will take a bedroom down here, Rochelle can go down to the saferoom with you, and Coach can sleep wherever he wants.”

“And I’m assuming you’re going to come up with a reason that I gotta sleep in the saferoom _other_ than that I’m a girl, right Nick? Cuz if you don’t, I’m gonna hit you over the head with my frying pan.” Rochelle snapped, giving Nick a I’m Waiting sort of look.

“Yeah, I’m gonna pass for now.” Nick replied.

“Hold up.” Keith interrupted before Rochelle had a chance to do anything. “Did you say you an’ Ellis would be sharin’ a room?”

“Yeah, don’t make a scene about it.” Nick responded snidely before stepping around Keith to go find a room.

Ellis gave Keith a nervous chuckle before clapping his hand against Keith’s shoulder, then followed Nick down the hall. Keith wasn’t sure why, but his stomach clenched a little. He refused to let himself dwell on the idea of Nick and Ellis sharing a room though, so he just directed Coach to the bedroom upstairs, then led Rochelle down to the saferoom. He let her take her pick of the rations before running a few MREs up to Coach, Nick and Ellis, and then went back downstairs.

He had trouble sleeping that night.

\----------

Keith wasn’t sure what time he woke up the next morning, but it was early. He spent a long time just laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He wasn’t exactly even thinking about anything in particular, or maybe he was thinking about so many things his mind couldn’t pick one thing to settle on.

He finally went upstairs at around 7:30 in the morning, or at least, that’s what the clock said, there was no telling whether it was accurate or not. He went to the bathroom first, but instantly wished he’d gone to the bathroom upstairs. From where he stood, he could hear soft little, hushed moans from the room next door.

After that, he strapped his boots back on, his bandana and a pair of goggles, his black jacket, and grabbed a variety of different weapons, heading out into the woods. He couldn’t bring himself to stay in the house, knowing what Nick and Ellis were doing. In all honesty, Keith couldn’t even figure out why it sickened him. He knew it wasn’t because he was homophobic or anything like that, he’d found himself taking a liking to a few people of the same gender when he was about fifteen, course he never told Ellis.

Keith pushed the thoughts from his head with a sigh. He couldn’t be distracted like that anyways. It was too dangerous to be out here without your full attention on your surroundings, so he swallowed the lump in his throat and force himself to be alert. It wasn’t long before he heard the sobs of a Witch nearby. He bit his lip, straining his ears to hear which direction the cries were coming from.

He crept forward slowly, gun pressed firmly against his shoulder, the barrel pointed out in front of him. His eyes scanned the trees, searching for a flash of white. A few hundred yards later and the volume increased, he could see the figure stumbling past a broken down car, a body that looked at least a month old lay beside it. Keith stayed hidden behind a tree, watching the Witch, hands covering her face, trudging forward, her sobs rising shrilly every so often.

After a minute of watching her, she slowed, her hands lowering so she could look around. Keith wasn’t surprised. He knew this figure had been hunting him down for weeks. He wasn’t sure why, but she’d been off and on his trail since Mercy Hospital. He knew he should just kill her, but he still couldn’t bring himself to. Again, he turned around and left, not letting himself look back.

Eventually, the Witch’s cries died down until he couldn’t hear them at all. He walked for a long time, the sun slowly rising higher in the sky. He passed bodies of people who’d tried to escape from the town through the woods. He crossed a small brook and another cabin. It wasn’t until he heard the loud cry of a Hunter that he realized he’d not only been lost in his own thoughts again, but had been stomping noisily through the forest, no longer trying to be careful.

Keith barely had enough time to turn around before the Hunter was on top of him. He felt no pain yet though, so he had to assume the blood already on the Hunter’s hands and face belonged to someone else. Still, he struggled violently against the heavy figure on top of him. His gun had been thrown from his hands, now several feet out of his reach, and his knife was strapped to his calf. There was no way he could get to it until he could get the Hunter off of him.

The Hunter raked it’s claws down the front of his shirt, leaving a long tear in the fabric. Keith narrowly managed to flip over onto his stomach, desperately trying to army crawl to his gun. His blood was pumping in his ears, his stomach tied in knots, his lungs were beginning to burn from how hard he was breathing. He only got a few feet away when he felt the Hunter grab the waistband of his pants and drag him back.

The worn, ratty leather belt he wore to keep his pants in place snapped and he felt his pants tug down a bit. The Hunter toppled back, it’s own weight sending it back at the sudden release of it’s grip on Keith. But it bounced back quickly. It took a tight hold on his pants again and yanked him back, the fabric descending more. Keith glanced back panickedly, freezing for a second and watching the Hunter.

Months of wandering Georgia by himself had taught him a few things, and one of those was that, at least with some of the Special Infected, once the Infected had fed, they fell back to a different instinct. He’d seen it with a handful of Hunters, a couple of Witches, and one Smoker a ways back, but never terribly upclose.

Keith’s panic rose in his throat, clouding his head. He struggled harder, thrashing his limbs, clawing at the ground to get to his gun again, but the Hunter was twice as strong as him and his weapon was too far away. It took all of his self control not to scream though, not wanting to attract even more Infected, not wanting to attract the Witch that was sure to be nearby enough to hear if he did.

Then, he felt the Hunter’s hot breath against the back of his neck and the teeth clamped down on his neck just above his shoulder, holding him in place. He felt something hard press against his back, his eyes squeezing shut, knowing exactly what it was. His hands clenched into fists, gripping the ground beneath him. The Hunter’s claws tore at his boxers, ripping them down before coming back up to dig into Keith’s back.

\----------

It hadn’t lasted long. It felt like it had, but Keith knew it didn’t. As soon as it was over, the Hunter had launched itself back into the trees, leaving as quickly as it had appeared. Keith rolled over onto his back, pulling his torn clothes back into place, using his shirt to wipe the warm liquid from his back. As soon as he had his gun back in his hands, he let himself sit back against a tree for a moment, simply staring out across the woods.

The inside of his cheek was chewed ragged, his mouth tasting of blood. It was all he could do to keep from screaming out. Even now, he couldn’t let out his frustration. Instead, he found a handful of rocks and hurled them as hard as he could before forcing himself to walk back to the house. The trip took about two hours, and by the time he finally got back, the others were up, dressed, had already eaten, and were playing some assbackwards game he and Ellis had invented in highschool.

“Ay, Keith! Where’d you go? You were gone when we all got up, I was gettin’ worried.” Ellis remarked as soon as Keith had walked through the door.

“Just took a walk, wanted to clear my head.” Keith replied, trying to give Ellis a reassuring smile.

There was still a bit of food left out on the coffee table, so he sat down and helped himself to what he thought might be eggs, but it was kind of impossible to tell with some of these MREs. He knew Ellis was watching him, but he didn’t look up.

“What happened to your clothes?” Rochelle asked.

Keith looked down. During the walk back, he’d completely forgotten how shredded his clothes were, his shirt especially. His pants were still wearable, looked more like he’d fallen on his hip and snagged them on a rock. His shirt barely constituted as a shirt anymore though.

“Hun’er snuck up on me. Guess I wasn’t payin’ ‘nough attention.” Keith replied, shrugging.

The air filled with tension and Keith knew that was his fault. Everything felt so awkward around Ellis now and he wasn’t really even sure why. He never was good at figuring stuff like that out, and it didn’t help that he felt even worse after what just happened. That wasn’t something he could tell Ellis though, so he just kept his mouth shut about it and ate his food.

“So did it work then?” Ellis asked after a moment.

Keith looked up. “Did what work?”

“You goin’ out to clear your head, did it work?”

Keith bit at his lip piercing, staring off for a second. “I guess I ain’t really sure yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr! http://birdwithakeyboard.tumblr.com/

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr! http://birdwithakeyboard.tumblr.com/


End file.
